PLAYBOY: Some of your old fans would agree with you – and not in a complimentary vein – since your debut with the rock-’n’-roll combo at last year’s Newport Folk Festival, where many of them booed you loudly for “selling out” to commercial pop tastes. The early Bob Dylan, they felt, was the “pure” Bob Dylan. How do you feel about it?

DYLAN: I was kind of stunned. But I can’t put anybody down for coming and booing: after all, they paid to get in. They could have been maybe a little guieter and not so persistent, though. There were a lot of old people there, too; lots of whole families had driven down from Vermont, lots of nurses and their parents, and well, like they just came to hear some relaxing hoedowns, you know, maybe an Indian polka or two. And just when everything’s going all right, here I come on, and the whole place turns into a beer factory. There were a lot of people there who were very pleased that I got booed. I saw them afterward. I do resent somewhat, though, that everybody that booed said they did it because they were old fans.
PLAYBOY: What about their charge that you vulgarized your natural gifts?

DYLAN: What can I say? I’d like to see one of these so-called fans. I’d like to have him blindfolded and brought to me. It’s like going out to the desert and screaming and then having little kids throw their sandbox at you. I’m only 24. These people that said this – were they Americans?